LeShan Da Fo (Giant Buddha at LeShan)
Oct 25th, 2007 by scott
Well, after a day spent getting from Jiuzhaigo to Chengdu and getting settled into the Mix Hostel, I went with 5 others from the hostel to see the 乐山大佛 (Lè Shān Dà Fó, or the Giant Buddha at LeShan for those who just want the English name, though I’ll use 乐山大佛 for the remainder of this post). We went in a van with a driver. This was arranged by the hostel at a price of Y550 for the van, or Y92 ($12.25) each for the trip, which was about 2½ hours each way. Taking a public bus, which you have to change to another bus and figure out costs nearly the same, so this was much easier.
In addition, the minivan had a DVD player installed in the passenger rearview mirror, so we watched “Wild Hogs” on the way to and “Mr. Brooks” on the way back from the Giant Buddha. Of course, given the state of things, the Mr. Brooks movie cut out near the end, before you found out what was going to happen and started another movie, “Disturbia”, which didn’t get to the end by the time we got to the hostel, so now we all have two movies we want to finish.
OK, enough about the trip there. First, here is a link to more pics…
So, 乐山大佛, 怎么样 zěnmeyàng? (How about the Giant Buddha?)
Well, as usual, there was the crowd…
But every time I think about complaining about their being a crowd, It always seems that everyone wishes everyone else weren’t there, which is natural, but…I just look in the mirror and realize that I’m one of the crowd and don’t have any more right to seeing this alone than anyone else…
Anyway, the 大佛 was, well, GIGANTIC!!! In the United States, we are so proud of things like Mount Rushmore, which was built in the 20th century using dynamite, etc. This Buddha isn’t just the head, the entire mountain was carved out for the seated Buddha, and it was completed in about ??? 80 years, from 700AD, using the technology available then.
So, what’s so amazing? This is definitely a case of pictures telling a thousand words…
The 大佛的头 (that rhymes, by the way, Dà Fó de tóu) or Big Buddha’s head (with people in the background for size comparison)
The Buddha (two photos were stitched together for this shot)
People at the Da Fo’s feet
Scott finally understanding how an ant must feel (Da Fo’s toes)
In addition to the 大佛, which was Y70, I bought the other ticket for Y40. I didn’t know what it was for, and I had to walk quite a ways to get there, but it turns out that there is another temple that has a big Buddha in it, then a huge, steep staircase, with other temple structures built around the courtyard at the bottom. Here is a link to a photostitched view that is a lot of pixels, so will take a while to download, if you’re interested. In each of the side buildings, there is a Buddha carved out of the rock, similar, I suppose, to the types of sculptures at the Longmen Grottoes that I wanted to go to but skipped because 我没有时间了 (Wǒ méiyǒu shíjiānle。or, I didn’t have the time).
乐山大佛 is something that I really wanted to see and I’m glad I made the effort to get here. It is a spectacular site and makes you wonder at the industrious nature of those people who lived long ago…